Meet Tommy the chimpanzee. The Nonhuman Rights Project found him locked in a small cage, in a dark barn, at a used-trailer lot in New York. Tommy lives in solitary confinement, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Chimpanzees like Tommy are intelligent, self-aware beings. But the law still considers Tommy to be a piece of property – a “thing.” As such, he has NO LEGAL RIGHTS. While the Supreme Court has ruled that even corporations are entitled to certain legal rights, Tommy has no more rights than a pair of tennis shoes.

Add your name to this urgent petition if you agree with us that chimpanzees like Tommy belong in a sanctuary, not in a cage, not in a laboratory, and not in a circus!

The Nonhuman Rights Project is the only organization working toward actual LEGAL rights for members of species other than our own. Our mission is to change the common law status of at least some nonhuman animals from mere “things,” which lack the capacity to possess any legal right, to “persons,” who possess such fundamental rights as bodily integrity and bodily liberty, and those other legal rights to which evolving standards of morality, scientific discovery, and human experience entitle them. Our first cases were filed in 2013. Your support of this work is deeply appreciated.

Take PETA’s Cruelty-Free Shopping Guide along with you next time you head to the store! The handy guide will help you find humane products at a glance. Order a FREE copyHERE

Want to do more than go vegan? Help others to do so! Click on the below for nominal, or no, fees to vegan literature that you can use to convince others that veganism is the only compassionate route to being an animal friend.

What do you see
What do you see when you look at me
The face of your genetic history
Do you see the intelligence, the soul,
The feelings
Of a primate that has suffered
From man’s cruel misdealings
Or do you see a thing
That belongs in a lab
Alive or dead
Lying on a cold slab
Your vision is determined
By your inner brain’s eye
My future depends
Please I do not want
To cry.

What do you see
What do you see when you look at me
The face of your genetic history
Do you see the intelligence, the soul,
The feelings
Of a primate that has suffered
From man’s cruel misdealings
Or do you see a thing
That belongs in a lab
Alive or dead
Lying on a cold slab
Your vision is determined
By your inner brain’s eye
My future depends
Please I do not want
To cry.